Slant
by tenrousei-kuroi
Summary: Sirius Black regards his brother with casual dismissal. Regulus Black is a freak, a blight on their family's name; but when Sirius's perfect Pureblood life comes crashing down around him, he may have no one else left. Desperately, the two of them must flee for their very lives, and maybe much more.
1. Beltane Brothers

Long-Ass Summary: Sirius Black has a perfect life. He graduated from Slytherin house with honors, he's married to the perfect pureblood woman, and he fulfills a respected career as the Dark Lord's ministry liaison. Yet he can't help but glance back sometimes at the brother he hardly speaks to anymore. Regulus never did quite live up to their family's impressive expectations; but when Sirius's life comes crashing down violently around him, the seventeen year-old psychopath he thought he'd rather forget may end up being all he has left.

Story notes: I've wanted to write this for a while. It's a massively AU story in which Voldemort controls most of the western hemisphere and Sirius Black is a Slytherin alumnus. Also since I'm _me_ I'm going to throw up the **brotherxbrother incest** warning right now even though it's not for a long while. Shit, that was probably a spoiler, but I feel like it's the sort of thing you need to warn people about early on. This first chapter is all mostly set up by default but I hope you guys enjoy it anyway. Go ahead and leave a review if you liked it!

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**Chapter 1: Beltane Brothers**

Sirius Black had always harbored a fear of spiders. Originally born logically from the knowledge that some of the little bastards could literally kill you, it had over the years morphed into an all out irrational phobia. He couldn't pinpoint the exact _moment_ when what was once an odd quirk transformed into a debilitating disease of the mind, but he was certain it had happened sometime in his teens. He could clearly remember keeping a jar of pet wolf spiders with his little brother Regulus (until their father found them, at least) around age nine or so with no hitches, and his first public meltdown had occurred during his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Clearly, something had gone down in the between time.

Sirius's wife (and cousin, but he liked not to think too much about that fact), Narcissa had a minor thing about spiders, too, but hers was more on the level of a sane human being. When a pregnant cookie spider had decided to make her home in the corner of the kitchen ceiling, Narcissa avoided the room for the rest of the day; Sirius spent the night outside in a tent and made numerous threats to burn down the manor.

And true to how the cosmos always seemed to conspire against him, he'd been plagued with spider-inundated nightmares since Christmas. It was more than once that he'd woken up in a cold sweat with the sheets tangled everywhere, comforter thrown to the floor, and Narcissa sitting rigidly against the headboard, grinding her teeth.

He'd taken every potion and non-magic remedy he could think of. The family's healers were perplexed. Nothing seemed to bring him any relief, not even for a night. A few of the prescription muggle drugs he'd been brave enough to try had worked for a couple of days, but their effects inevitably wore off and left him to the mercy of his straining mind.

And it really was his mind that was breaking, because the nightmares weren't the worst of it. For the last few months, Sirius Black had been having what he could only assume were daytime hallucinations. Usually they took the form of snakes. Sirius wasn't particularly frightened of snakes beyond a normal level of caution necessary for dealing with _anything_ that could bite; however, it had been more than disconcerting the first time a ripple in his wall grew progressively bigger before cracking open and dropping a fully grown black mamba onto his living room carpet.

He'd screamed, actually. Dashed backwards and whipped out his wand before Narcissa had come running.

"What?" she'd yelled.

But by the time Sirius had mustered the strength to emphatically gesture towards the wall, everything had disappeared. The wall was stoic, its wallpaper flawlessly replaced, and there was no snake in sight.

"I…it…"he'd sputtered.

_Pureblood Mania,_ Narcissa called it. "Your parents are cousins," she reminded her husband. "And they're hardly the first set…come to think of it, our first clue should probably have been when _you_ married _your_ first cousin…"

Sirius hadn't told any of the healers about his hallucinations in the vain hope that they would go away on their own. Narcissa had laughed at him mostly, but there was still a small glint of unease on her face whenever he mentioned any of his 'episodes' that made him nervous. He didn't want word getting out that he was going insane so perhaps the fewer people who knew, the better. And what good could the healers do anyway? They'd not yet even managed to curb his nightmares…

The worst part was there was no pattern to any of it. The episodes were entirely irregular, and seemed unaffected by weather, his diet, stress, or any other factor. He'd long since stopped informing Narcissa about any of it. It would just make her anxious, and Sirius Black had long ago decided his life was grating enough, _thank you._

"Have you readied what you'll wear for Saturday?" asked Narcissa casually over breakfast the morning of Wednesday, the 27th of April.

"Readied?" asked Sirius wearily. Biting his lip, he smoothed his syrup around his plate, waiting for the incumbent explosion.

"Well I've not seen you purchase anything yet…"

"Cissa, I've been working," Sirius countered lamely.

"So have I," she replied briskly. "But I still found the time to pick up this lovely set of imported indigo dress robes for the party and you don't hear me bitching."

"Indigo's going to clash with your hair," Sirius pointed out bluntly. Narcissa bristled.

"Oh, what do you know?" she sighed. "Maybe I'll dye it for the occasion," she whispered conspiratorially, leaning forward.

"Dye it what, _purple?_" asked Sirius incredulously.

"No, idiot, black like Bella's…and yours," she added as an afterthought.

Sirius nodded. "Well, we'll match, how terribly cute."

Narcissa rolled her eyes but she was handling Sirius's sullenness a lot better than he'd been thinking she would. "Whatever, just make sure you've got something good lined up, and that nothing goes…wrong."

Her words weren't overly hostile, but it was still heavily implied that Sirius was to keep his little episodes under the radar. Narcissa had obviously noticed he was still having them even if he had been neglecting to mention that fact.

"Right," he said.

"Look, I'm trying to be nice with you, Sirius, the least you could do is return the favor."

"Sorry," Sirius stood up and cleared the table. Sullenly, he set the dirty dishes in the wash sink and with a wave of his hand filled it to the brim with soaking water. The house elf could finish it later.

Narcissa smirked and leaned back in her chair. "You're pretty tricky with those kinds of household-y spells, aren't you? You would have made a perfect house-husband. Maybe that's something you should consider when we have kids."

Sirius coughed suddenly and a jet of hot water spurted out of the faucet, striking him squarely in the face. Wiping desperately at his eyes, he gasped, "W-what?"

"Oh, relax," said Narcissa sharply. She stood up and marched past him through the kitchen and towards the staircase. "You've not got people badgering you about that every day of your life like I do so calm down."

"Narcissa!" Sirius pleaded loudly.

"I said relax," she repeated from the top of the stair flight. "Lord knows _I'm _not the one that wants any brats, and besides you'll never have to worry anyway with as infrequently as you're ever able to get it up."

Sirius blushed a fierce red at her comment but bravely exited the kitchen to face her anyway. "I'm sorry about my father; I know he gets on your case a lot," he said earnestly, choosing to act as though she had not just made a rather uncouth remark about his sexual prowess…or decided lack thereof.

"The man is a maniac," responded Narcissa from her lofty position above him. "He's probably spreading nasty rumors about me around the whole family as we speak."

Sirius groaned, knowing she was likely right. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "He and my mother are on edge about everything."

Sirius moved up the first few steps cautiously, as though approaching a dangerous animal.

"They just…they put a lot of importance in, you know, carrying on the bloodline and whatnot. You understand, I know you do, because Uncle Cygnus is hardly a progressive individual."

"I _know_," insisted Narcissa. Her stature deflated somewhat and her shoulders sagged. "But why this all seems to be falling on _me,_ I do _not_ know."

"Well," Sirius said calmly. With great care, he walked up to his wife. "They're just panicking that they're not going to get an heir from me…god knows they're not getting one from my brother," he added in an undertone.

Narcissa heard him, though. "What? Haven't they married him off, yet?" She let out a little laugh.

Sirius shrugged. He moved behind Narcissa and wrapped his arms around her, gently kneading around her waist with his fingertips. "He's…proving to be a little difficult," he admitted.

Narcissa scoffed. "Mmm," she leaned back into him. "He's a freak."

"That's one way to put it, yes."

"He's not turned seventeen yet and he's had more stays in that mental institution than most boys his age have had girlfriends."

Sirius rolled his eyes and snorted. Regulus's lack of girlfriends was sort of a piece of the problem.

"What?" asked Narcissa curiously.

"Nothing, nothing, you're right is all," Sirius buried his face in her neck and inhaled deeply. "Now tell me about the new clothes you bought."

Narcissa smiled tentatively and began to describe them in detail, positioning Sirius's hands for him as she did.

"…and the collar is lined…" she drew his fingertips across her clavicle. "…with the most expensive atlas…"

Sirius had a good feeling about this go around. The stumbled into the bedroom together and Narcissa reached slowly down the front of his robes, seeming to dread what she might find. Sirius was aroused, though, and Narcissa let out a delighted squeal before pushing him down onto the bed and jumping after him.

She pulled all her wavy blonde hair over one shoulder and smiled down at him. "So that's all it takes to get you going, huh?" she asked in a joking tone while she started unclasping his robes. "Just a little conversation about your brother and you're all ready?"

She was laughing, obviously kidding, but something about her words left a bad taste in Sirius's mouth and a guilty weight was settling on his chest.

"Right," he muttered, closing his eyes. "Fuck, you're…"

"Shh, I know," she placed a finger over his lips and sat up from him, undoing the navy green work clothes she hadn't gotten around to changing out of. Sirius reached up to weave his hands in her hair and she closed her eyes with a sigh.

Smoothly, Sirius sat up a little and leaned in for a kiss, practically praying that this would all go well. So far Narcissa had been remarkably faithful to him all considering, most likely out of a reverence for their family, but with as unsatisfying as their marriage was it was only a matter of time before she started to look elsewhere. That was something that could cause serious problems if it got out into the public sphere.

Sirius opened his eyes as their lips parted but Narcissa kept hers closed, breathing out a light peppermint smell from her glossy mouth.

Sirius ran a hand down her naked back and she arched for him slowly, like a cat just waking up. He smirked and was planning to plant a trail of kisses from her belly to her neck when it happened: something bit him hard on the hand.

With a cry of shock and pain he whipped his hand back around into sight and found attached to it a long, grey snake, digging its fangs into the back of his wrist. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the spiders. Long, crooked legs and shiny black bodies crawling hastily around in Narcissa's hair and up over her shoulders.

He screamed and flailed madly, knocking Narcissa off of him and onto the rug. The snake released him and immediately coiled around his throat. The spiders rushed up the bed to pool around his face. From his neck the snake was hissing almost soothingly into his ear.

_[shhh] _it seemed to be saying _[don't kid yourself...]_

Narcissa picked herself up and pulled her discarded clothing hastily around herself. She seemed unsteady on her feet and there was now a delightfully red rug burn down the side of her forearm. She looked beyond furious.

Panting, Sirius braced himself against the headboard and clawed at his neck. The snake was gone, and so were the spiders, but his skin was still tingling.

"What the _fuck?_" Narcissa screamed. Her voice made his ears ring and he clapped his hands over them.

"Narcissa, I…" he looked up at her but she was already backing away, shaking her head fiercely, her disheveled hair hanging lankly over her eyes.

"Just…fucking don't," she hissed.

Sirius staggered up from the bed, still a little unsteady himself. He tried desperately to reason with her. "I'm sorry, Cissa, it was just—" he had to duck before he could finish his sentence, though. Narcissa had seized the nearest framed picture off the wall and hurled it at his face. Sirius ducked just in time and it shattered against the far wall.

"Your brother's not the only one in this family who needs to be permanently sectioned! You're a lunatic! I'm…shit, I'm going to Andromeda's. Make sure you've got something nice to wear for that damn Beltane party at your parents'. I'll not have people saying my husband is both psychotic _and_ disgraceful. Don't talk to me until Saturday."

She left, slamming the door with more force than was necessary. Every remaining picture frame on the wall shook and several fell crashing to the ground.

Sirius groaned and threw his head in his hands. He knew he should probably be going after her but he just couldn't make himself do it. Suddenly he'd lost all his energy.

Enraged at both himself and his wife, he flopped back down onto the bed, unwilling to even redress himself. He did still have a problem after all; one that wasn't courteous enough to just go away on its own. It seemed that when he finally managed to get an erection it was without a doubt the real deal.

Sirius's groans turned nearly to sobs of despair as he guiltily wrapped a hand around himself. He jerked himself off quickly, unwilling to think about much of anything at all for fear of what images might slink into his head if he wasn't vigilant. He could still feel the spiders' pointy legs scuttling around on his skin.

The next two days Narcissa was gone; the next two nights he had no nightmares.

* * *

Midday on Saturday the 30th, Sirius finally got around to preparing himself an appropriate outfit. It was nearly an hour of belaboring decisions and fretting before he finally settled on the same set of deep red robes he'd worn the previous spring.

At least if they caught on fire this year no one would be able to tell…

Grimmauld Place was just as he remembered it. Nothing had changed in the months since Christmas; nothing had changed in the years since he'd _lived_ here. Sirius's father greeted him cordially and led him in to the drawing room where his mother was carrying on a conversation with her brother, Alphard.

"Sirius!" Alphard cried jovially upon seeing him. "Early like always, I see, good lad!"

Sirius nodded. "And you as well, Uncle."

Alphard Black laughed. "Been here since Tuesday, actually. A vacation _in_ the smog, you might say."

"All that fresh country air was too much for him," commented Sirius's mother, Walburga. "He just had to come back to the city."

"I didn't know you were in town," Sirius frowned. His father sat down next to his brother-in-law, but Sirius remained standing awkwardly in the doorway. "I would have like to have talked to you…"

He turned to his mother as if to demand _why didn't anyone send word to me?_

Walburga said simply, "Yes but you're so busy at the ministry, sweetheart, you're such an important person now. My dear brother didn't want to distract you from any of your work!"

Alphard, who had been in the middle of a long drink of something alcoholic, sputtered a bit as he endeavored to talk with his mouth full. "Yes, yes…what is it you're dealing with now? The Dark Lord's representative, no?"

"His _personal_ liaison," cooed Walburga. "We're so proud of him."

"Imagine that pays well," said Alphard quietly.

"The monetary compensation is hardly what's important," said Orion callously. "Our son is keeping his whole family in the Dark Lord's good books. Isn't that right?"

Sirius forced a laugh. "Oh yes, he just loves us all," he said, doing his best to tone down the sarcasm.

"Come and sit with us, Sirius," Orion continued. "Do tell us where that pretty wife of yours is, as well."

"Yes," Walburga licked her lips as she lit up a cigarette. With her pitch black robes and long, dark hair, the glowing tip strongly resembled the last dying ember in an empty, smoking coal pit. "Where is Niccy, Sirius?"

Sirius shifted uneasily. "She is…arriving later than I because…she just…well," he looked to his father. "She just couldn't get herself all put together, kept changing outfits and then suddenly needed to conspire with her sister to make sure there would be no matching dress robes fiascos, you know…!"

His father nodded sagely. "Ah, yes," he chuckled. "A familiar problem."

Sirius mother scowled a bit, and turned away from her husband. "Come sit with us, Sirius," she said. "We've hours before any of the rest of the family arrives."

Sirius leaned away unconsciously . "Yes, well…I'll join you all in a little bit, actually, I've something else I've been meaning to attend to now that I'm back home here for a few days…"

"Oh that reminds me, we've cleaned your room for you, sweetheart, fresh sheets and everything," Walburga said after exhaling a thin string of smoke into the air. There was a dignity about her from her posture to her words that suggested quite heavily _and by 'we' I mean 'the servants.' _It was that kind of casual disregard for something—even a domestic elf—that flippant way of regarding the Help as an extension of yourself that never sat too well with Sirius.

He often suspected that had only a few dominoes been positioned slightly differently, his life would have shaken down in a totally different way, perhaps he would have been a substantially different person. Sometimes—more frequently now that he was married and could see his whole, empty life stretched out ahead of him—he got the uncomfortable feeling that a whole repressed personality lay coiled in the pit of his stomach and the very back of his brain. Somewhere just below the surface of his consciousness was a man with a lot more personality…someone who was probably braver…someone who just one or two little changes in Sirius's past could have brought out.

Be that as it may—it wasn't who he was now ! Who he was now was a twenty-one year old wizard trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman seven years his senior, working as a messenger boy for a masked psychotic, and with no real friends to his name (none he could do more than pretend to trust, really). Yet at least the sheets on his childhood bed had been recently changed!

"Thank you, Mother," Sirius said evenly. "I think I'll just bring my things up to my room…I've got some paperwork to get through tonight. I'll be down when the others arrive, in time for dinner…"

"Yes, yes…remember, Sirius, the celebrations start at sunset, and dinner an hour before! But I wouldn't dare keep you from your work," there was a terrible honesty to his mother's voice.

"Yes, my work is very important," Sirius sighed and turned away. He didn't want to spend any more time with his parents or uncle, but he was dreading going upstairs as well. "Let me know if you all need any more help setting up," he called over his shoulder, and then he was gone from the room.

When Sirius turned fifteen, he had gone through a minor rebellion. Mostly it gravitated around how prude his family was, and in an attempt to either get his parents attention or flip them off (to this day he wasn't entirely sure), he had pinned up a multitude of very tacky posters on his bedroom walls and door. Most of them had been of scantily clad witches from several of the seedier wizarding magazines he'd managed to nick from a friend's father. It had only taken a few nights of lying wide awake under their lecherous scrutiny for Sirius to start strongly regretting his decision. Sexy girls were one thing, semi-naked women cooing and taunting the terrified teenage boy who was trying to sleep were another. In his arrogance, he had plastered them up with permanent sticking charms and he supposed having to ask his father for portraits to tack up _over top_ of them was punishment enough for his hubris.

Nothing bonded children to their parents quite like pounding a nail through a supermodel's face and then using it to string up an expensive painting of a distant relative.

Sirius crept into his room slowly. Sometimes the bikini witches would start getting feisty again if they heard a man moving about in the room, and it was always more than a little disconcerting to hear their moans and pleas coming from what appeared to be a photograph of Sirius's graduating class.

True to Walburga's word, the bed was newly made. Sirius set his travel bag down on it and then sat himself at the foot. Narcissa would want to sleep in a guest room; she always did. It wasn't _that_ strange, he told himself. After all, his parents had separate bedrooms, and they got on about as well as any pureblood couple ever had. At least he and Narcissa still shared a bed at their own manor…well, providing Sirius could keep from screaming bloody murder and chucking her across the room too much.

Sirius threw his head in his hands and groaned. What a disaster the other night had been. His only solace was that his mind seemed to have gotten it all out of its system, at least for a while, and he had had no nightmares or hallucinations since.

"Fuck," he laid back and rolled onto his side. He had lied to his mother earlier; he didn't have any paperwork to do.

"_Mm, yes please,_" came the guttural reply from behind the portrait above Sirius's bed. "_Come here and let's do it, little boy._"

Sirius opened his eyes and looked up. When the voice didn't stop, he quickly closed his eyes again and threw his hands over his ears to try and drown out the sound and image of a thirteen year-old Regulus Black dressed in immaculate, water-colored robes and asking his big brother to fuck him while they stood side by side on the windy Hogwarts Quidditch pitch.

_"Want it…need you…"_

"Sirius?" there was a harsh knock on his door. "Lad, are you awake in there?"

A dozen sleazy female voices shut up at once and Sirius Black scrambled up with a frantic start. He wiped at his eyes. Had he really fallen asleep?

"What time is it, Uncle Alphard?" he asked, recognizing the voice.

"Dinner's starting in ten minutes and your mother would like help carrying everything outside."

Sirius nodded, then immediately felt like an idiot. "Yes, "he called. "I'll be right down. Just need to sign this last…letter…"

"You work too much," came the response from behind the door. Sirius heard his uncle's footsteps die away. Still a little floored from his impromptu nap and sporting an erection he'd rather not have, he staggered to his feet.

In the full length mirror by his dresser, he readjusted himself, smoothed his hair, and brushed his robes straight again (leaving extra room in the front). When he thought himself presentable, he took out his wand and headed back downstairs.

There was food stacked on what appeared to be every plate in the house, and said plates were situated all over the kitchen table, counters, and even several of the chairs.

"Oh, Sirius!" came an excited cry from the opposite hallway.

"Bellatrix?" Sirius peered down the dimly lit corridor. Bellatrix rushed at him out of the darkness and swirled around to hug him from behind .

"Good evening, baby brother, we thought you would stay upstairs forever!"

Sirius laughed. "When did you get here?" he asked.

"Round an hour ago. I got here just in time to help finish the desserts," she pointed to a pyramid of roast chicken slices set next to the sink. "Wait," she spun around and instead pointed to the far end of the table, which was covered in Caesar salads. Frowning, she spun again. "Uh…there!" she finally located the giant proportions of gelatin and devil's food cake hidden behind several bottles of wine on one of the kitchen dressers.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Really? You made that?"

"…Well I put the frosting on…and opened the whipped cream containers!" Bellatrix insisted. When Sirius started to laugh, she punched him.

"How are we coming along in here?" asked Sirius's mother, reentering the kitchen. She frowned when she saw Sirius doubled over in pain and Bellatrix glaring.

"We were just getting on that!" insisted Bellatrix. "Come on, Sirius," she muttered, straightening him up. "Help us carry this all outside. We're starting eating in a minute!"

"Yes," said Walburga, still eyeing Sirius with unwarranted scrutiny. "Everyone's sitting at the tables outside, we just need to bring dinner out."

Sirius nodded. He knew his parents preferred for their house elves to never be seen by anyone else. Hence why the creatures had cooked the dinner, but disappeared when the time came to present it to the guests.

Sirius slid his wand out of his pocket. "Let's go," he smiled and levitated the starting salads with one hand, and picked up three bottles of sparkling wine with his other arm. Bellatrix and his mother both followed suit and they marched outside.

A chorus of cheers and laughter greeted them when they staggered out the sliding glass door and onto the beautiful back lawn. The first person Sirius noticed was Narcissa, sitting next to Orion. She glared calculatingly at Bellatrix as the three of them approached the table. She seemed to be searching for some clue as to whether or not Sirius had been behaving himself. She appeared to interpret her older sister's sincere smile as proof that all was well, and so stood up and glided over to them to kiss Sirius fondly on the cheek.

"I'll take these from you," she removed the bottles from his grip and set them one by one onto the table.

"Slide one this way, Niccy!" called Rodolphus Lestrange from in between Aunts Lucretia and Druella. Narcissa sent a bottle gliding down the long table where it skidded and fell gently into Rodolphus's awaiting hand. The women on either side of him giggled as he popped the cork and sent a brief shower of alcohol into the air.

Narcissa sat back down while Sirius's father took the salads from him. On her left was Rodolphus's younger brother, Rabastan. He was barely fourteen, and a skinny little fourteen-year old at that. He seemed even smaller wrapped up in a sleek, green sweater that was obviously his brother's, with a glistening skull and snake badge pinned to his chest that also belonged to Rodolphus—a sign of rank given to him by the Dark Lord.

Rabastan took a sip of the very small amount of wine allotted to him by Sirius's father, who was making rounds and dishing everyone out drinks and salad dressing while his wife and Bellatrix tossed around extra forks and serviettes. When he was certain none of the stricter adults were watching, Rodolphus leaned forward and tipped an extra splash into Rabastan's glass. The youngest Lestrange giggled and swallowed it quickly before either of his parents could notice he had more than he should.

Sirius sat down opposite Narcissa and next to Andromeda. He continued to watch Rabastan for a while, cuing up similarities between him and his older brother. They both had the same wavy bronze hair (Rodolphus's would often lie perfectly straight but no matter how hard he tried to deny it everyone knew he took a flat iron to it each morning), identical golden-green eyes and if he took up a few more sports activities, Rabastan was sure to grow out into that tall, lean figure his brother so enjoyed showing off. Rabastan even tried his best to talk like Rodolphus, drawling his words and tilting his head up and to the side…it had been particularly amusing when Rabastan's voice had begun to change and he was left sounding like a dying, female version of the Lestrange heir.

Rodolphus had almost twelve years on his brother, quite a respectable gap, which had always made it apparent to everyone else that Rabastan was a child born because his parents, now content with the respectable Family Head they had carved out of Rodolphus, wanted someone to spoil and love. Rabastan never quarreled with Rodolphus like siblings might, the latter was almost a third, much more lenient parent to him.

Orion slid a plate in front of Sirius, patting him on the shoulder as he did so. As he walked away, Sirius felt a pang of jealousy towards Rodolphus. His family seemed so much more intact—more _real._ Perhaps that was why Sirius felt so useless all the time, he had no one to idolize or be idolized by. (All right, that coupled with the impotent disaster that was his sex life and patronizing career choice). His own younger brother was loath to so much as speak to him when not forced to by an adult, and honestly Sirius wasn't sure he'd have wanted Regulus's affection even if it had been offered. Regulus was…well…Narcissa had been right when she'd called him a freak. He was just so…bizarre.

And speaking of Regulus, where was the little grievance? Sirius looked up and down the table but couldn't see him anywhere.

"Father," he asked after Orion sat back down, finished dishing food to the others. "Where is Regulus?" There was enough mingled conversation going on around them that they were not greatly overheard, but Aunt Druella, both Lestrange brothers, Andromeda, and Walburga all flicked their eyes over to Sirius when he voiced his question.

"In his room," said Orion firmly. "_Your_ brother has been nothing but a thorn in my side all week and I've had it. He'll not be having dinner with us tonight."

"Ah," Sirius nodded awkwardly. Unlike Rabastan, Regulus had not been planned for. Once certain they would be having a second boy, Sirius's parents had decided to keep him on the off-chance Sirius turned out to be a failure…or died or something along those lines. But Sirius had never wavered from damn near perfect in terms of obedience (with perhaps that bikini poster escapade being his one, ill-fated instance of rabble rousing) and Regulus was quickly deemed useless for that purpose. Now he was just kind of…there, not of any particular use to his parents or their family. The best he could hope for was to simply _not_ cause any problems, and live in relative anonymity, but Sirius figured that ship had sailed nearly a decade ago. Regulus had been on his parents' nerves since he was old enough to talk, and the problem had only magnified when he'd started school. As a young child, they could get away with locking him up in Grimmauld Place with little exposure to the outside world (a practice that Sirius had always thought might have been slightly counter-productive); however, when he'd gotten his letter and slinked off to Hogwarts, people had…well, _noticed_ him. The fact that their unpredictable (_"And simply unacceptable!"_) second son was away at a boarding school well outside their immediate control where a number of people could see him, could talk rumors about his family…it irked Walburga and Orion, set their teeth constantly on edge.

Which wasn't to say they didn't still love their youngest. For all the fuss and bother, Sirius was sure either one of his parents would still take a curse for Regulus with no hesitation, as would he. They were family.

That didn't mean he had to like the little bugger, though.

"Will he be joining the party later tonight?" asked Andromeda curiously, seeming genuinely empathetic towards her cousin.

"Yes, I suppose so," Orion sighed. "I've informed him to join us at sunset, and he may still enjoy the evening, providing he holds that errant tongue of his."

"He ought not be allowed," commented Aunt Druella dryly. "You're far too soft with that boy, 'Ryan." She turned to Andomeda before continuing. "I've seen this one with him. It's just a few light smacks and then he shuts him up in his room. What the child needs is a proper beating—" her eyes left Andromeda, who was looking quite horrified by that point, and latched back on to Orion. "—as your parents would have done to you."

Orion nodded, humoring his sister in-law.

"Times change, Druella," said Walburga sensibly. There was a slight glint in her eyes, though, that suggested strong bodily harm would befall anyone with the gall to strike her child. A part of it was probably love; a bigger part of it was most certainly an automatic reaction to being told what to do. Blacks did not take too kindly to suggestions on how to live their lives.

"They certainly do, Walburga," said Druella with disdain, as though she were certain everything had changed for the worst.

"Oh don't be such a downer, Mother," said Narcissa, who had jutted into their conversation. "I'd say a lot has improved over the years!"

And so their conversation had segwayed into a discussion of Voldemort's regime. Sirius grumbled and sat back in his chair. He got enough of the Dark Lord during the work week _thank you very much._ He certainly didn't want to be talking about the man now. Besides, Sirius couldn't see much of a difference in his life since the Overtaking at the Ministry. It was truly of little consequence to him.

Sirius allowed his mind to wander all through the rest of dinner, until he was contentedly full and noticed Rodolphus weaving around the chairs collecting the empty dessert plates.

The backyard and patio were beautiful, Sirius had to admit, especially in the last rays of the dying sun. Magically rejuvenated May flowers were strung up along the ancient walls of the house, in the trees, and all around the lawn. There were burning torches and floating glass lights encircling the whole property. In the very center of the grass, an area had been cleared for the bonfire. When Sirius had been younger, there had been multiple fires, but over the years they had been merged into one for convenience, and the tradition of dousing all house fires and relighting them from the flames of the bonfire had been switched from the start of the evening to the very end; it was now the last thing to be done before everyone went to sleep for the night.

Sirius stood up to help Andromeda light the first of the flames. If he was going to be expected to jump over the bonfire, he'd prefer to do it when it was all still kindling and the risk of igniting was at a minimum.

When they had a good fire going, Andromeda stood back up and flung her wand in the air, shooting off fireworks. Slightly anachronous for a Beltane festival, but it was as good a starting pistol as any, and since when had they ever followed the rules perfectly, anyway? Sirius's father set the music playing and the night in full swing.

It was almost another hour into the party before Sirius finally saw his brother. Regulus was leaning against the stone side of the house, idly tearing the petals off a May flower while their father gestured to him, speaking angrily. Sirius disentangled himself from Narcissa's arms and moved closer.

"I mean it, Regulus, no more of your nonsense. Not tonight, not at all this weekend!"

"Yes, Dad," Regulus let the last of the bright petals twirl to the ground and then moodily smashed the flower's center between his fingers.

"Will you look at me when I'm speaking to you?"

Regulus looked up forlornly. "Dad, can I go back to my room?" he asked. "I don't want to be here, and you and Mum don't want me here. Besides, I was working on something…"

Orion grimaced. He looked angered by the notion that confining Regulus to his bedroom was less of a punishment than originally thought. Sirius personally thought that little fact was something his father should have caught on to years ago. "No, Regulus."

"Come on, please?" he insisted. He looked awfully depressed.

"Regulus one more whiny word and I'll be sending you back inside to one of the spare bedrooms and I can promise you you'll be feeling very sorry indeed."

Regulus sighed heavily. He looked about to argue further, but then he caught sight of Sirius and seemed to change his mind. "Okay," he said quietly, dropping his gaze.

Their father sighed. Tentatively, he reached forward and pulled Regulus to him by his sleeve. Regulus allowed himself to be peeled off the wall and situated in front of Orion.

"Are these the new robes your mother bought you?" Orion asked.

A nod.

"They look very good on you. You're getting so handsome now…have you had any of the ashes yet tonight?" he added when Regulus didn't respond to his compliment.

"No," said Regulus.

Orion nodded. "Well you'd better get some," he said, gently cupping Regulus's face for a moment to better look at his eyes. Regulus usually smeared his allotment of ash on and around his eyelids like liner and shadow. "It'll protect you, you know. Here, go dance with your brother," he said gruffly. He sent Regulus walking up to Sirius with a pat on the back.

Sirius associated Regulus with Grimmauld Place more than he did his own parents, and in that same curious manner as the house, Regulus too had not changed a micron since they'd last met months earlier. He never changed.

He was still almost a head shorter than Sirius, still skinny, still curiously tan for someone who rarely left his bedroom let alone the house. His eyes were a dark, stormy grey, his hair so black it shone almost blue in the right lights. Their father was right, his new robes did look good on him, hugging his body in just the right places, but they were also the one thing that didn't seem quite right. Regulus normally wore deep blue or green robes that he'd altered himself, bedazzled with dark black patterns and shining arm bands. He always stood differently when he was in the wrong clothing, carried himself awkwardly. Sirius had only seen such behavior in one other circumstance, and it was when Regulus had worn his school robes at Hogwarts.

Sirius glanced only once at his father and inclined his head briefly to the man as if to promise _yeah, I've got him for a while; yes I promise I'll whack him if the need arises._ Then he led Regulus back to the glow and warmth of the bonfire, a strange sense of calm floating around his insides where previously there had been only boredom and anxiety.

Regulus allowed himself to be led, and to his credit held still and silent while Bellatrix enthusiastically mixed some of the ash with a small vial of constituting potion and then smeared the concoction delicately around his eyes. The rest of Regulus's ash was sealed away in the small jar with his name on it and set it on the table in between Sirius's and Walburga's.

As was sort of his forte, Regulus didn't move or speak to Sirius at all, merely he stood there looking disinterestedly at the ground. Sirius made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and yanked his brother close against his chest. He smelled unusually good, like incense and cherries. Sirius wondered what exactly Regulus had been messing around with up in his room.

Sirius looped one hand through his brother's and slid the other to the small of his back. At a moderate pace, he led them around the fire. Everyone else was preoccupied dancing, talking or snacking, so Regulus's lack of enthusiasm went mostly unnoticed. Eventually he did lean himself forward into Sirius's left shoulder, though, as if accepting defeat.

Two songs later Sirius was sick of pulling Regulus's dead weight around and so stopped moving. Instead he wrapped both arms around his little brother and griped, "I's not that bad dancing with me, so quit your moping. I know you don't want to be here, but I'll tell you a secret, _neither do I._ Now knock it off."

"Don't yell," complained Regulus. His voice was just as Sirius remembered it as well. Oddly distant and a little off, like he was constantly casting wandless, silent magic. "Just keep groping me for a few more minutes to make Dad happy, and then you can go back to impotently groping at our cousin."

There was the Regulus that Sirius remembered.

"Shut up, Regulus," hissed Sirius, tightening his grip on the younger boy. "I don't want to get into a fight, okay? So just…try to be pleasant and sociable tonight, all right? Or…shit, just be normal, okay? Can you do that? Be fucking _normal?_"

_Oh Christ,_ he thought dismally. _This must be exactly how Narcissa thinks…_

"Anything for you, Sirius. I've been looking forward to seeing you, you know."

"Really?" Sirius scoffed. "Well I've not been wanting to see you, that's for sure."

Something like hurt might have flickered across Regulus's dark face, but it was gone immediately and he only shrugged. "Say what you want," he said. Andromeda and Narcissa went hurtling past them, flowers flying from their loose hair. Sirius and Regulus resumed their pseudo-waltz.

"Do you want to sneak out of here for a while?" asked Regulus when the next song ended and Sirius was looking like he was losing interest in dancing.

"Don't be stupid, Regulus, we're not going anywhere, and besides, you've not jumped the fire yet."

"I don't want to, and no one else has remembered that I haven't gone, look they've already added the second round of wood. The flames will be much too high to jump for hours now."

"Whatever," Sirius tore himself away from Regulus and his intoxicating scent. "I am…I am going to go and sit down at the table for a while with Aunt and Uncle. Go…do something quiet elsewhere."

Regulus followed him anyway. With a growl, Sirius grabbed him roughly by the arm and dragged him into the shadow of the large elm tree so they would be less obvious.

"Go, Regulus," he hissed. "I'm done with you for the night, okay?"

"Are you sure about that?" asked Regulus innocently. His breathing was rapid, though, as if he were concentrating very hard.

Sirius took several deep breaths to gather himself. "Yes," he insisted. "Now get _lost_," he pushed the flat of his hand hard against his brother's chest in an effort to force him backwards. His hand struck something hard.

"Ouch," Sirius muttered, shaking his hand. Regulus put a little smile on his face and made to turn away.

"Get back here," Sirius growled. He pulled Regulus back into the shadows and unclasped the front of his robes.

"Stop that," said Regulus tonelessly.

"Fucking shut up, Regulus," Sirius said. He splayed out his brother's robes to reveal the shirt beneath. It was very dark in their shaded corner, but enough light from the party struck them that Sirius could without a doubt make out the small emblem pinned snugly to his brother's chest. He'd seen it's likeness enough times at work to recognize it in an instant.

The phoenix writhing in the flames was the symbol of the resistance to the Dark Lord's rule. A small, pathetic rebellion constantly put down by the lowest of officers, but a threat nonetheless.

For a long time, Sirius only stared at Regulus's emotionless face.

"I've changed my mind," he said quietly, re-doing Regulus's robes. "Let's get out of here for a little while."

* * *

I've got this story all laid out. Hopefully the next chapters will be longer than this first little intro one!


	2. The Enhancing Solution

**Chapter Two: The Enhancing Solution**

"Put on a cloak, Regulus."

"No."

Due to the loosened security spells (there was a celebration going on, after all) Sirius and his brother exited the party through the house to little notice or fanfare. Sirius felt for all the world like he was fifteen, and sneaking out in the dead of night to meet up with his friends, or perhaps a girl—not that he had ever done such a thing. The irrational feeling that he was breaking the rules settled on his shoulders like an impractically heavy collar. He tried somewhat exasperatedly to curb how many times he glanced behind himself at the fast retreating sight of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. The cold and empty visage of the supposedly abandoned house gave no hints that a raucous party was concealed behind its windows.

Regulus, for his part, was moving about with a practiced ease. From what Sirius had overheard talking to his parents in grown-up situations, Regulus had a bad habit of slinking around in the dead of night. To hear his father tell it, Regulus could be reliably counted on to have vanished from his bedroom nearly every summer night at two a.m. precisely, despite extended security at the house. This had taken Sirius by surprise because he'd never noticed it when he had been home. So either these occurrences were something new since he'd been married, or his parents were just now catching on. Sirius had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter.

Most every streetlight was broken or barely flickering. Regulus didn't seem to need any light, but Sirius felt strangely uneasy. He slid out his wand and with a practiced wave, set about himself and his brother an encompassing dome of soft sunlight.

Regulus shifted uncomfortably as they walked. Sirius smirked, a little satisfied that his light was making Regulus ill at ease. They set off at a brisk pace walking down the street.

"All right, Regulus, we're three streets from the house, I think you need to talk to me now," Sirius said a few silent moments later.

Regulus, who had been marching in front of him like a prisoner, stopped briefly and turned to him. "Talk to me?" he asked curiously before starting walking again. "What on earth about?"

Sirius growled and grabbed his brother by the arm. "You know well what about," he said through gritted teeth. "You've the mark of a traitor on your chest!"

"Hm?" Regulus pried Sirius's hand off him and encompassed it in his own. Sirius could feel an intense warmth radiated from Regulus's fingertips. "You mean this?" Regulus continued, sliding Sirius's hand inside the folds of his robes and up against the shockingly cold, metallic badge.

Sirius unconsciously gripped his (and by extension Regulus's) fingers around the cursed thing. It slid from his shirt with little resistance. Sirius tugged it out into the light to scrutinize.

If there had been any doubt before, now there was none. This was the symbol he'd seen shot into the sky, burned into walls, and carved brutally into the very skin of several of his Lord's low-ranking officers.

"Yes, Regulus," he scolded. "_This._ Do you have any idea what this is or what it means? Where did you _get_ it?"

"It's nothing," Regulus commented blandly. He yanked the flaming phoenix from Sirius's hands and threw it casually into the street where it clattered noisily into the gutter. The panging sound shot through the air like a siren, echoing off empty alley walls and upturned garbage bins. "Just a trinket I got in exchange for some…blueprints. I kept it because I thought the metal might be worth something to me," he looked forlornly into the sky. "But it's a cheap alloy. I would have thrown it a way sooner only…"

_Only what?_ Sirius thought. _Only you wanted to use it to get my attention? Why?_

Instead he asked in a harsh voice, "Who gave it to you, Regulus. Are you still in contact with them?"

Regulus took a step or two back. "Why?" There was that same curious innocence on his face that didn't fool Sirius for a moment. "It was just some lady. Some lady and her low, little friends."

Sirius surged forward until his was inches from Regulus's face. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "Don't you know how dangerous this is!"

Regulus scoffed. "I've heard Mom and Dad talking. Those pathetic mudbloods are of no consequence to you or your Ministry friends at all, right?" His tone was odd. Sirius couldn't tell if he genuinely believed the rebels were no threat like most purebloods did, or if he was being sarcastic and perhaps knew something more. Either way, it didn't change Sirius's reaction.

"You idiot," he said angrily. He raised his hand and brought it down forcefully on his brother's head, sending him to his knees. "_They're _not dangerous, but the Dark Lord _is._ Have you any idea what he'll do to _me_, if he catches word that you've been slinking around with those people?"

A brief look of shock and maybe deep hurt overcame Regulus's face, and Sirius began to circle around him like a predator. By the time he was in front of his brother again, Regulus's face was once again stoic. "Sorry to be such an inconvenience to you, Brother," he said, standing up. He didn't even seem to register that he had been struck.

"Don't give me that act. Are you still in contact with these people? Do they know who you are? Does anyone else know what you've done?"

Sirius was working himself up, getting into a frenzy. Then all at once, he felt a powerful calmness. Regulus placed a hand on Sirius's shoulder and set the other on his face, slowly rubbing the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "Easy," he breathed, looking up into Sirius's eyes. "There's no need to be frantic, Ani ki."

"Don't call me that," Sirius protested weakly. His whole body seemed to sag. "Regulus," he pushed his brother back a bit. "We need to go home now."

Regulus bit his lip. "Not yet," he said. "Let's stay out just a little bit longer."

Sirius shook his head. "It's dangerous to be out at night."

"No it's not," Regulus disagreed. "Because no one but us Purebloods ever goes outside anymore, especially at night. You don't get it, Sirius, _we're_ the danger…" There was a fierce expression on his face, an extra darkness to his eyes. _I am the danger,_ it seemed to say.

Sirius's eyes floated over to the completely deserted street. Not a single light shone from any window, and every car was dusted over, as though none had been driven for a very long time.

"Please, Sirius," Regulus leaned into his brother hard. "Come downtown with me." Sirius swayed back a little, overwhelmed once again by Regulus's strangely intriguing scent. His weight felt good pressing up against him, warm in contrast to the cool night air.

"Where did you want to go?" Sirius asked when he managed to pull back from Regulus and come up gasping for air.

"Around," said Regulus coyly. "There's really a lot to see if you just know where to look."

Sirius cocked his head. He felt a little dizzy almost, and his tongue seemed to work before his mind. "All right," he agreed slowly. "But not so long that anyone misses us. I need to speak with Narcissa some before she retires for the evening…"

Regulus smirked and stepped just outside Sirius's magic dome of light. "Let's go then," he insisted. "Walk with me for a ways."

He looked so tempting in the light glow of the dome's penumbra, with his head tilted regally and his arms crooked at his sides. His grey irises shone so vibrantly from out his black-rimmed eyes that Sirius felt almost hypnotized. He allowed his magic light to flicker out and followed blindly after his brother, who immediately led him down a crooked street to their left.

As they walked, the street got narrower; the buildings seemed to almost close in over their heads, encasing them in near-total darkness. Sirius relied mainly on sound, and the occasional glint from Regulus's silver family ring to keep him following his brother.

Sirius didn't know what Regulus was playing at with all this. This area of London was entirely non-magical. His heart stopped for an instant. Did Regulus have muggle friends? Did he sneak out at night to see them? To _help_ them?

Sirius blinked hard, and followed Regulus through the tight gap between two dilapidated brick houses. (His brother seemed to know his route by heart). That was impossible. Regulus didn't have friends, and he would never sink so low as to help a non-wizard.

But could Sirius really be so certain? What did he really know about Regulus after all? The two of them had never been close, and it had been years since he'd heard Regulus string together so many words in his presence as he had tonight. Suddenly Sirius was worried. The badge, his intimate knowledge about this part of town…maybe Regulus had really been sneaking around with the resistance.

But then why bare all to Sirius of all people? And why tonight? There was a dull crunching in his heart as well; he felt a massive urge to apologize for hitting his little brother like he had. It had been uncalled for. He had been unnecessarily forceful. The moment had passed, though, and the more seconds ticked by, the more belated the prospect of an apology seemed. Sirius tried to let the idea drop.

What would he say, anyway?

Sirius stumbled and almost rammed into Regulus's back as the younger Black had abruptly stopped moving. Squinting, he looked around and saw they were in someone's backyard. The overgrown weeds reached nearly to his knees.

"Regulus—"

"Shh," Regulus pushed himself through the tangled plants and up to the crumbling fire escape. "I need to get something."

Sirius coughed. "Get _what?_" he demanded. "Somebody might still live here!"

"Unlikely," commented Regulus idly. He stepped gingerly on the first rung of the ladder. When he was satisfied it would hold his weight, he surged up to the small balcony. "Dead bodies are bad luck. People don't like to stick around if they start seeing too many."

"Huh?" Sirius stared uneasily at the iron fire escape. It had supported Regulus, but he was a little bit larger, and didn't much feel like slicing his leg open and getting tetanus. "Somebody died here?"

"An elderly man, about a month ago, yes," said Regulus humorlessly. Sirius could barely see him crouched at the far end of the balcony, leaning over what looked like a flowerbed. Throwing caution into the winds, he scrambled up the ladder and approached him.

"I didn't kill him, if that's what the unpleasant look on your face is for," said Regulus without even glancing back at his brother. "I just made it a little difficult to find his body. I imagine it horrified his neighbors by the time they finally saw through my glamors."

Sirius looked into the raised bed. "What's in here?" he asked suddenly.

"A little of this, a little of that. I suspect the nomenclature wouldn't interest you much," Regulus plucked a strange orange, spiky stem out of the soil. "I planted them here in early April. They grow superbly well in areas permeated by a lonely corpse."

Sirius shifted uncomfortably.

"Look, the second crop is ready."

Sirius leaned closer, and was met with the strong scent of cherries and weeds. Now he knew what it was Regulus had been working with in his room earlier.

"You can plant flowers at your own house, Regulus," Sirius pointed out.

Regulus shook his head. He yanked a few more orange thistles from the bed and then stood up. "The ambient temperature isn't right, nor is the altitude. This was the ideal area."

He turned and slid down the fire escape and back into the jungle of a backyard with a clatter and a crunch.

"The difference can't be more than a few degrees!" argued Sirius, who followed him after a brief period of shock at his sudden movement.

"In cases like these, a little change can make a big difference!"

Sirius watched in awe as Regulus removed a small flask from inside his robes and unscrewed the cap. He soaked the top half of one of the orange stalks in it for about forty seconds before discarding it. Sirius's only solace was that, if Regulus was spending his nights casting glamors over corpses to drain their resources and growing what were likely illegal plants on abandoned properties, then he was at least not a mudblood— or muggle—sympathizer.

In fact he was downright psychopathic.

"Here," Regulus held out the silver flask. "Take a drink, Big Brother."

"I would rather die," Sirius responded bitterly. He grabbed Regulus firmly by the front of his robes. "Now enough of all this; we're going home."

Regulus wriggled free. "Just try some," he insisted. "Here, look, I'll go first!" And before Sirius could stop him, he chugged a huge swallow of the sweet-smelling liquid.

Sirius stood stock-still, waiting for something to happen. When it didn't, he allowed his eyes to flicker down to Regulus's left hand gripping the container.

"It's only an enhancing potion," explained Regulus. "It just makes everything a little clearer, is all."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

Regulus shrugged, and held the flask out again. This time, Sirius took it. "Because I've only just started making it. It's a variation on the Drought of the Seven Senses."

"Since when have you been good with potions?" asked Sirius bitterly. "Father is constantly on you for failing Slughorn's classes…" _Since when have you been good with anything? _Sirius cautiously inhaled the fumes spiraling outwards from Regulus's potion. Immediately his focus sharpened. The night seemed…brighter. The outlines…the edges of everything got crisper, and a multitude of extra sounds surged towards him. Intrigued, he decided to try a taste.

He took a long, careful drink and Regulus continued to explain his concoction.

"It heightens everything," he said while Sirius drank. The potions tasted strongly of the flavor Sirius imagined a dandelion would possess. "Your five major senses, your equilibrium, your mind, your…feelings."

Sirius coughed.

"Do you like it?"

"The taste or the effect?" Sirius found himself nearly choking. "Because that's two different things."

"How do you feel?" asked Regulus. He stepped up face to face with Sirius.

"Like my mind is on fire," Sirius reached his hands up to rub his temples as a surge of disconnected emotions racked through his body all at once. Disgust, self-loathing, loneliness, lust…each one shot to the front of his mind before disappearing long enough for another to take its place. He couldn't connect any of the feelings to actual persons or events.

He was so angry, but at who? Himself? No, maybe Narcissa…and then he was lonely, so very lonely, but how could be when Regulus was right here?

Regulus. Sirius lurched his arms down and grabbed Regulus roughly by the arms. "Regulus," he breathed, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. His brother's pale face was so encased in shadow it was hard to look at him properly. Especially with that large shadow spot above and around his left eye. Sirius tried to brush the darkness away but his nails scraped only tender skin.

"Oh," he murmured. "That's where I hit you. You're getting a bruise."

Regulus tried to replace Sirius's hand with his own, to feel the mark for himself, but Sirius wouldn't let him. He pinned Regulus's arms to his sides and pulled him forcefully down into the grass. They both disappeared beneath the long stalks. Distantly, but clearly, Sirius could hear water trickling down somewhere. Perhaps there was still a functioning garden fountain around here somewhere.

"Sirius," Regulus whispered from somewhere beneath his brother. He shifted uncomfortably against the dirt and rocks. "I think you might be overly sensitive to this kind of potion right now. You—you haven't been taking any prescriptions lately, have you? For your…I mean…"

"Hush, not important," Sirius pressed his forehead against Regulus's. "What I take at the manor, not important. You, though, _you're_ important. Shouldn't have hit you."

"Am I?" Regulus said. "To you? Am I really?"

Sirius stretched his whole body out over Regulus's, trapping him. "Now, yes."

Regulus seemed to relax a little, although Sirius was very hot and heavy. "That's…good," he breathed.

"You make a lot of this?" asked Sirius, pressing his face into Regulus's shoulder and inhaling deeply the now intoxicatingly attractive potion scent. His lips twitched and he debated whether or not he'd be able to taste any more of the substance in Regulus's mouth. "How long does it last?"

"Usually an hour or so, but you're…Sirius you're reacting harder than I do."

"Yes," agreed Sirius, and a hand slid gently to Regulus's throat. "Because I'm not _you,_ am I?"

"I never said you were," said Regulus carefully. Very much aware that he would have a hard time throwing his brother off, he eyed cautiously Sirius's fingers, which were closing determinedly around his neck.

"I'm the opposite of you, so much better than you, so much more wanted…_so why the fuck can't I be happy?_"

The lust, the fascination, they were gone from Sirius's eyes as his emotions swiveled around again and a random anger—probably originating from Narcissa or their parents, but now unrestrained—took place. A little frantic now, Regulus pushed up at Sirius's chest and groped at his hands, trying to free himself. For a minute, there was only his exhausted panting and the crunching of the dying grass stalks until Sirius spoke again.

"I'll hit you again, you know," he growled. "For dragging me all the fuck way out here so you could pick your goddam flowers. And then what? So you can test your useless potions on me? You're a _freak,_ Regulus. I think you need another little stay at that hospital—_stop fucking thrashing!"_

He raised his hand high, but before he could follow through, it happened. It started with a light tickling down near his elbow, but that was all Sirius needed to feel before he convulsed so hard he threw himself off of Regulus and onto his side. He frantically hit at his sleeve, but it did little to abate the flood of spiders spilling out of his cuffs.

He was yelling nonsense, and scrambling to stand up when he felt a warm hand on his forehead. The last thing he saw before he passed out for a little bit was Regulus kneeling over him with an expression of depressed acceptance on his face while gleaming black widows crawled over him like he was made of spider silk.

* * *

When Sirius came to, the first thing his mind latched on to was an immediate panic that his parents would be missing him. How long had he been gone? He staggered into an upright position and looked around blearily.

"Regulus?" he demanded. His head was still pounding as some kind of side-affect to that potion his brother had cooked up, and in between mind-blanking painful throbs he remembered to be angry about it. He didn't see his brother anywhere, though; in fact, it took him a moment to realize where he was. He had been dragged underneath the fire escape he and Regulus had climbed up earlier and nestled up against the crumbling brick wall.

"Fuck," he rubbed his forehead. Why had Regulus moved him? Then his hearing started to reassert itself and he heard the unmistakable wet patter of water crashing into the ground. It was that rare kind of warm, summer rain that wasn't all too unpleasant and tended to smell really nice, or at least Sirius imagined it would if he weren't crammed up against a rotting building and currently covered in muck, weeds and crumbled drywall.

And to think he could be home right now, nestled comfortably beneath the safe umbrella spell that his parents had placed above their property for the duration of their Beltane party. He could be dry and relaxed right now instead of trapped under a grated balcony that (as his brain was quick to remind him) had previously housed a rotting, dead body.

"Regulus," he called again, his anger rising. This was why he never spent time with his brother, because it inevitably revealed more about the boy than he'd ever wanted to guess, and usually ended with him abandoned on private property, sleeping off the after-effects of a prototype potion. "Where are you?"

Sirius's knees protested vehemently as he straightened himself out and stood up. After banging his already panging head on the fire escape's steps twice, he shuffled out into the rain. Glaring, he reached into his pocket, aiming to whip out his wand and cast a rain-repulsing spell of some kind.

His robes were, aside from filthy after being dragged forty feet through the rain-soaked yard, decidedly empty.

"REGULUS," he roared, whipping around to look in a full circle.

His brother didn't answer him, but there was a light rustle from the next yard over that caught Sirius's attention.

"I can hear you, Regulus," he guessed, praying it was actually his brother he'd heard. "Now where is my wand?"

A small light flickered on around Regulus, who was sitting at the base of a dilapidated old stone fountain underneath a dead London Plane tree. Perhaps it was the great distance between them, but he looked very small.

"First promise you won't kill me with it," he said. Sirius approached him rapidly and as he came into focus, he noticed Regulus had his arms folded pathetically across his stomach, and was shaking ever so slightly. Sirius stepped over the low, wrought iron decorative fence that marked the line between properties.

"I'm not going to kill you," he said slowly. "I'll probably hurt you, though."

Regulus looked up sadly. "I suppose that's fair," he admitted. He held out Sirius's wand to him. Sirius grabbed it and immediately felt whole again. A wizard without a wand was no more powerful than a muggle. Wandless magic was incredibly arduous and rare.

"All right…" Sirius looked down at his brother and felt most of his anger wane. In its place was only frustration and fatigue. Regulus seemed so dejected sitting below the chipped granite angel covered in rainwater as he hadn't even bothered to pull his hood up. Perhaps it was just that he lacked the needed energy, but Sirius couldn't convince his muscles to raise his wand.

"Let's just go home, Regulus. I don't want Mother and Father to know I was gone."

Regulus blinked. "Okay," he said shakily, and he stood up. Sirius tugged him gently by the sleeve out of his soft dome of flickering amber light and once again into the darkness of the yard. Sirius lit his wand and off they set via the same ruined path that had brought them there. Nothing much had changed except that they were both wet and depressed and Regulus's pockets were presumably still filled with orange, spiky contraband.

Regulus seemed to drag his feet all the way back. "Come on," Sirius urged him, never once letting go of his sleeve for fear he might run off again. As useless as Regulus was, Sirius would have a hard time explaining his disappearance to their family.

Grimmauld was as dark and silent as they had left it. Sirius didn't know for certain how long he'd been out, but judging by the moon and stars visible on the far horizon where there was a break in the stormclouds, it had been hours.

Sirius shook the light off his wand. Exiting effortlessly had been one thing, but he should still need to present his magical signature to enter the building. But he had barely tapped the doorknob when the whole thing swung open effortlessly, unlocked.

Regulus tensed immediately by his side.

"Cocky bastards, our family, aren't they?" Sirius laughed. He barged inside, pulling Regulus behind him.

"It looks like everyone's gone to bed already," he commented when he closed the door behind them. All the lights in the house were off. Casually he flicked the kitchen lights on and wandered down the hall a ways to look out the slider and onto the patio. There was nothing but a dark, damp lawn.

"Shit," Sirius muttered, returning to the kitchen where Regulus still stood, completely immobile. "If we were gone so long they went to bed then they surely noticed we were gone! Fuck I'm going to have some explaining to do in the morning," Sirius groaned.

He noticed Regulus was shivering again.

"Why is it so cold?" he wondered aloud. Absentmindedly he took off his own outer cloak and draped it over Regulus, who put it on obediently. "Told you you should have worn something heavier," he chided. "Still, it shouldn't be this cold in here. All the fires have to be lit with the remnants of the bonfire outside…they can't have all gone out."

"Sirius?" a voice drifted down from the second landing.

"Oh, Andromeda!" Sirius breathed with relief. "I was starting to get nervous."

He jogged over to the staircase and surmounted the first few steps. Squinting in the darkness he could just make out the dark form of his cousin standing at the top of the stairs.

"Is that you?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes," Sirius answered. "We didn't mean to be gone so long, Regulus and I only stepped out for a minute, but," Sirius turned back to beckon his brother to him but Regulus had vanished. "…We, uh…got side-tracked," he turned back to Andromeda. "Think I can risk flipping on some more lights to find my way to my bedroom or is that tempting fate? I don't want to wake up either of my parents," he admitted fearfully.

"Just come up and go to bed, Sirius," Andromeda seemed to gasp. Her voice sounded awfully raspy.

"Andy?" asked Sirius with concern. "You sound sick. You okay?" He slowly felt his way up a few more steps. "All the partying take it out of you?"

Andromeda rustled slightly on the spot. Sirius took his wand out and almost lit it, but she rasped again, "Sirius!"

"What?" he demanded. "Andromeda, I—"

There was a god-awful slicing sound, a soft gurgle, and then Andromeda's body crumpled at the top of the stairs with a sickening thud. Sirius screamed and leaned backwards, toppling down to the bottom of the stairs himself. Horrified, he looked up. Andromeda lay slumped on the steps, but she also seemed to still be standing tall on the second landing. Fumbling frantically, Sirius slid up the wall and knocked the switch to turn the lights on.

A short woman with fierce red hair tied back low against her neck was standing over his cousin's dead body, a bloodstained wand in her hand.

There was far too much dark mask paint on her face to recognize much else, but she had unusually bright eyes and a crooked smile. "Been waiting for you, Sirius," she said in a voice much higher than Andromeda's.

Sirius looked again to Andromeda's twisted body. So it really had been her talking earlier. The blood sliding out from under her chin and dripping down each stair was new. Minutes ago she had been alive and talking but now…

Sirius stumbled backwards and dashed back to the kitchen, only to find it considerably more occupied than it had been before.

Three more people—a man, two women, and one so androgynous it was hard to tell—all with similar paint around their eyes and cheeks had him cornered at the foot of the stairs. Their wands were already locked on Sirius's chest, while his own hung limply at his side.

"Who the hell are you?" Sirius gasped, but he already knew…in theory, anyway.

"Just some people who think you and your little friends have been fucking the rest of us over just about long enough," said the only obvious man in the group. He towered over Sirius, who was not short to begin with, and had to be twice as wide. Despite having switched on the lights, Sirius felt almost encapsulated by darkness again with the muscled mountain of a man looming over him. "Now it's time to see just how well your master functions without his right-hand man. So if you'll be so kind as to cooperate with us as we proceed to rid the world of your wretched presence, then maybe not too many more of your disgusting family need to take a spill down the stairs as well."

He cocked his head nonchalantly in the direction of Andromeda and Sirius felt sick to his stomach. The sound of footsteps told him his cousin's murderer was approaching him from behind, but he didn't dare turn to face her.

"Right-hand man?" he asked, trying to sound more brave than he was feeling. "I think you've made a mistake…sirs. I'm a _messenger boy._ I'm not—it's just—I don't really _do_ anything!" he insisted. "You're wasting your time! Voldemort won't care if I'm dead!"

"Of course he won't," one of the women stepped forward. Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Just like you think you're going to smooth talk your way out of this!"

"Not so clever now, are you, you slimy little snake. You let your guard down. Guess that's one lesson the Dark _Lord_ doesn't teach at his murder school."

Sirius's whole body was tingling. His head was pounding worse than ever and all he could seem to think was _no you've got this all wrong. I didn't choose to be like this, I was just going along with what was easiest!_

He came to the horrible realization that he was about to be murdered. Murdered without having ever really been happy. What had he ever had in his life? A detached family, zero true friends, a job as a carrier pigeon, a loveless marriage to his own cousin and on top of it all he was probably still _technically_ a virgin considering he and Narcissa had never managed to get very far.

There was a clatter and the sound of angry shouting from a distant corner of the house.

"Stupefy!" a voice screamed and Sirius saw the man towering over him slump sideways and fall to the ground, shaking nearly the entire house. He yelled and ducked away from the remaining four Phoenix members.

"Sirius, get over here!" the same voice yelled. Sirius recognized his Aunt's voice.

"Aunt Druella!" he yelled while around him a fight broke out. Druella had brought with her seemingly half the family including Rodolphus, Narcissa, Sirius's Mother and his Uncle Alphard.

"How the fuck did they get untied?" demanded the woman who had murdered Andromeda. She didn't seem to ponder her query for long though, and quickly leapt at Rodolphus, who countered swiftly and the two set about dueling.

Druella looked quickly to Sirius. "Regulus revived us and untied us, Sirius," she called over the sound of spells being fired rapidly. "Those of us who made it, anyway."

"Your father is down by the cellar entrance with Rabastan and Bellatrix," Sirius's mother explained while blocking an onslaught of attacks from several more Phoenix members who seemed to have materialized out of the very walls. "Sirius, honey watch out!" she yelled, sending him flying backwards with a jab of her wand before focusing on her attackers again. Sirius saw the offending spell fly past him and dent the wall.

"Go to them," his mother continued. Dinnerware and expensive kitchen trinkets shattered all around her in the background. "Make sure they're okay and then get yourself out of here."

"Mother," Sirius cried. "I'm not just going to leave—"

"Now is not the time to be defiant, Sirius, GO!"

Without another word, Sirius dashed down the hall, frantically listening for any clues as to where the rest of his family might be.

He found his father locked in a fight with two attackers. Bellatrix was lying either dead or unconscious at his feet and Rabastan was nowhere to be seen.

"Sirius!" his father yelled gratefully when Sirius was able to take out one of his opponents from behind. Together the two of them managed to convince the remaining one this was a battle not worth his time, and he fled back to the main kitchen presumably to fight with his group.

Orion was ready to follow him, but hung back long enough to grab Sirius's face in his hands.

"Your brother never fucking listens to me, Sirius," he said urgently.

"Huh?"

"Listen to me. He came back here, got us all out of the ropes, and when I told him to leave through the fucking window, to get out of here before those mudbloods came back and noticed what he'd done, he ignored me. He ran up to his room, I think, he took off up the stairs."

"Father, I—"

Orion shook him. "I've got to make sure your mother is okay. You need to—_listen to me, Sirius._ You need to go get your brother, and then get out of here, do you understand me?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He kissed Sirius quickly on the forehead and then released him. Years of knowing Sirius would do whatever he said without hesitation convinced him to take off down the hall before his son had even comprehended what he'd said.

When it sank in Sirius felt horrible. Regulus hadn't crossed his mind since he'd vanished from Sirius's side in the kitchen.

As though in a haze, Sirius, ran up the small, spiral staircase at the back of the house. It led to the opposite side of the landing as the main stairwell. He prayed he would run into no opposition on his route; he wasn't sure he had it in him to fight.

Regulus room was locked, and Sirius was in little mood for knocking. He didn't even raise his wand. Instead he rammed the door down with his shoulder, splintering it into pieces in his adrenaline and stumbling into his brother's bedroom. Just as it had always been, Regulus's ceiling was covered in drying plants and hanging reptile skins. Incense burned on nearly every flat surface and smoke constantly filed out from the crack under the closet door. Sirius hadn't come in here often as a child, but that was the sort of imagery that stuck with a person.

Regulus was just standing there in the corner, wide eyed and damn near petrified.

"Regulus!" Sirius ran forward.

"Sirius," Regulus croaked.

Sirius tried to urge him to move. "Come on," he said.

"Sirius," Regulus planted his feet firmly in the ground. "I saw…Rabastan and Bella. Sirius, they're _dead!"_

"I know," Sirius whispered, even though he hadn't. "But Regulus, I need to get you out of here."

Regulus shook his head. He looked so sad and pathetic, his face almost completely covered from black ash, Sirius's bruise, and a multitude of new scrapes and cuts. Sirius tried his best to be sympathetic, but he was increasingly aware that if these people had overpowerd his family once, they would likely do it again, especially with Bellatrix—their family's star duelist—dead in the hallway. Then they would come looking for him again.

"I know you're scared, Regulus, but I need to get you somewhere safe," he tried to pull Regulus by his sleeve, but the boy twisted completely out of his robes to get away. Frantically he backed up against the far wall by the shattered door.

"I don't deserve it," he muttered nonsensically. "Go, but leave me here."

Sirius growled. He dragged Regulus—who, now in just his shirt and his trousers was without loose, baggy clothing to slip out of—over to his bedroom window. Without even thinking of his wand, he smashed the glass in with his fist. "We don't have _time_ for this shit, Regulus," he yelled, pushing out the rest of the window until there was a hole big enough to fit out. "You think Mother and Father would ever forgive me for leaving you here? They _told_ me to keep you safe, I _want _to keep you safe. We're getting the fuck out of here. I'll come back with reinforcements once I can trust you're away from here."

"No," Regulus moaned. "Sirius, please don't."

"Shut up, Regulus!" Sirius resisted the urge to hit him again, knowing it wouldn't help and knowing he'd regret it later. "We're going to the manor. From there I can contact the Ministry."

Regulus's eyes widened. "No!" he insisted, but Sirius didn't listen to him. Harshly he pushed him backwards out through the cracked window. Regulus scraped himself up on the sharp edges of broken glass, and crashed painfully through the back garden grove all the way to the ground, but Sirius had little time to worry about that. He jumped out after him just as he heard the clattering footsteps ascending the stairs.

They were moving to come get him.

Sirius couldn't apparate within the property lines of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. It was one of the few security measures that hadn't been lowered for the weekend. He needed to get to the street, or a neighbors backyard.

He picked Regulus up off the ground and pulled him along, ignoring his constant stammering and attempts to change Sirius's mind.

"Get back here! _Stupefy! Reducto!_" Sirius could hear the redhead's voice. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her standing furiously in Regulus's window, a group of people behind her. Her curses missed him and his brother by inches, so he doubled his efforts and hauled Regulus to the property line.

They collapsed into the overgrown yard next door, and immediately the atmosphere changed and the view of Grimmauld Place vanished to be replaced by a glamor of a run-down duplex with a gravel pit for a backyard.

Terrified that their pursuers would any second catch up to them and burst forth from the fake scenery, Sirius gripped tightly Regulus's neck and wrist. He apparated them away with a crack and a second later they appeared, sprawled out like tuckered puppies, on the front walk of his and Narcissa's manor near the coast. The distant roar of the ocean was the first thing he heard.

The second was his brother's distraught breathing.

"Don't cry, Regulus," he insisted, hauling them both to their feet. He estimated he had a good five minutes left before his adrenaline high vanished and he collapsed. "I'll contact the ministry right away. I'm sure Mom and Dad are still fine. We'll get someone over there to help them, just…let's get you inside first okay? Then it's straight to the fireplace…"

Regulus was leaning so heavily on him that Sirius was debating just picking him up altogether.

"We need to _leave,_" he brother kept repeating.

"Shush, Regulus," Sirius said, more harshly than he intended. "Quiet now."

Regulus only whimpered.

Sirius looked up for the first time at his house and was suddenly acutely aware of why they needed to leave. They'd been waiting for him here and Sirius briefly marveled how bizarre it was for _Regulus _to have thought of that fact, when it had taken _him _completely by surprise. From behind shrubbery and the statues on the front lawn crept seven or eight more Members, this time without the painted masks but it hardly mattered. Sirius only got a split second's glimpse of them all before a muted voice hurled a particularly heavy stunning spell directly at him and everything shorted out.

**This was supposed to be longer than the last chapter but it ended up being shorter because I am a liar liar…maybe I can go back later and lengthen out that fight scene. :/ I'll check this for typos later.**


	3. My Lovely Home, Burning Brightly

**こんにちは。**More words for you all. Sorry it's super short but did you really want the boring filler to be stretched out any longer? I'm excited for the plot, which should get some major payoff next chapter .

* * *

When Sirius first came to, he first saw that the world was on fire. Before he even opened his eyelids, he could _feel_ the heat and sense the brightness that scorched the night. Everything was orange and red.

Second Sirius noticed that he was left completely alone, flat on his back on the crackling lawn. He staggered into an upright position and saw no one. To his left, just barely audible over the snaps of the enormous fire and the roars of the oceans waves, he heard the voices. They had moved to the beach, and left him unattended because he had been stunned. Why, though, had he woken up? You couldn't exactly throw off a stunning spell…

With a start, Sirius felt something cold and slick moving under his shirt. A long, black garter snake uncoiled itself from his waist and made off towards the beach. Panting, Sirius stood up and watched it go.

Sirius's first instinct was to apparate away, back to the ministry where he could summon help for his parents and cousins. He almost left, but the tingling he felt along his waistline where the snake had touched him lingered…he touched a hand to his stomach.

Where was Regulus?

The path to the beach was steep. Sirius perched himself at the edge and stared hard down at the shoreline. There was enough light from his flaming home to see the searching.

"He can't have gone far!" a woman cried, sending jets of light from her wand to illuminate the darkened sand dunes.

"He's here. He can't have apparated; there's no way he's certified," another insisted. "Someone get back to Black, make sure he doesn't slip past us and go wake him up!"

Sirius crept out of sight. So Regulus was hidden somewhere, he told himself. Whether Regulus was involved with any of these people or not, they would kill his brother if they found him…Sirius was running out of time. He didn't know how long he'd been out—long enough for someone to start a fire—or what the status at Grimmauld Place was. Should he stay and try to secure Regulus's safety, or risk Regulus to get help for everyone else, presuming they were any of them still alive.

"Shit," he muttered, dashing around the manor towards its back garden. With more snark than was maybe necessary, his mind pointed out to him how he didn't seem to care that his entire home was turning rapidly to ashes. There was nothing for him in that mansion anyway. The belongings in his room, the priceless paintings in the den, the house elves in the cellar…none of it meant anything to him.

"Regulus?" he called softly, very much aware of the intense heat around him as it scorched his hair and set the ends of his robes smoldering. He knew he had only a few seconds more before someone noticed his body was not lying obediently where it had been.

Frustrated, Sirius raked a hand through his singing hair. There really weren't that many places to hide on the property that weren't already half incinerated, and the Phoenix earlier had been right; Regulus was not certified to Apparate. Permission to utilize that kind of magic needed to be given by Voldemort himself. Sirius's earlier double Apparation with his brother had probably already been tracked and catalogued by the Carrows—as was one of their many jobs—and he imagined he'd have to do some smooth talking to explain everything to his superiors later on…

…if there was a later on.

"Regulus, I don't fucking have time for this," he hissed. "Now come out so I can beat the shit out of you and then get us both out of here."

A slight ruffling sounded from behind him. Sirius whirled around and saw the air in front of him shimmer a little as the heat waves rippled, but then the air started to shudder more than was natural even for a fire this big, and soon a shape materialized. From where before had been empty space, Regulus Black appeared, hanging his head and looking up timidly at his brother from behind ash-laden bangs.

Sirius gaped and then immediately set into a volley of coughing, smog clogging up his lungs. "Where did you learn to do that?" he demanded, momentarily forgetting the danger they were in.

"From Bella," Regulus admitted quietly, and Sirius felt a sudden pang at the mention of his cousin. Bellatrix had truly been a remarkable wizard, but now she was dead, and would never have the chance to teach Regulus anything more. A tiny amount of jealous anger stormed up Sirius's throat and into his brain as well, though, just what had Bellatrix been doing spending time with Regulus? She didn't like him much more than Sirius did…

"Oh really? And what had she been smoking that made hanging out with _you_ seem like an enjoyable idea?" he scoffed before he could stop himself. Regulus only looked away.

"She's gone," he mused, eyes on the ashy sky.

An impotent yell filtered around the house and directly into Sirius's ears.

"And so are we if we don't move," he said. He grabbed Regulus by the forearm.

"Wait!" Regulus cried.

"What?" Sirius asked out of pure reflex.

"Conjure bones, light them on fire. Make them think we're dead."

Sirius took an instant to really stare at his brother. He had the creeping feeling that when Regulus said "them" he meant not just the Phoenix members, but perhaps the entire world as well.

"Good idea," he nodded, and proceeded to do just that. He hadn't the energy to conjure from nothing, so he summoned the dead house elves from the depths of the house. They appeared, sprawled out and smoking, face down on the lawn. Sirius transfigured them larger, gave them dark hair and human features, and slid off his robes and Regulus's shirt. Clothing, after all, couldn't be conjured. When the bodies looked enough like him and his brother, he shot one final jet of fire at them for good measure, and then pulled Regulus to his chest. His fingers tingled as they connected with the bare skin on the back of Regulus's shoulder.

"Deep breath," he commanded, and Regulus obeyed.

They disappeared in a crackle of flames just before the first of their enemy rounded the corner of the house.

Sirius and Regulus landed with a clatter in a completely random location. Sirius's mind had been too scattershot to think reliably of a destination, and so they had ended up in a back alleyway behind what looked to be an Italian restaurant. Sirius, feeling weak in the knees from the harsh impact with the concrete, pushed his brother out to arms length to inspect him. Regulus looked like he'd been pulled from an oven and then struck with a blunt object, but everything was still attached. Sirius supposed he was immensely lucky he hadn't splinched half his brother off.

"Good to see you're in one piece," he said tonelessly. He needed to keep moving quickly. Partly to get to what remained of his family, and partly to distract himself from his brother. Regulus was the closest to naked Sirius had seen him in years and he just wanted to…_touch. _ "Now get ready to go again, we need to get to the Ministry and alert the authorities."

Regulus shook his head. "I…I can't do it again," he coughed into his open hand; his palm came away grey with soot.

"Fine," Sirius snapped immediately. He didn't have time for this. "Then stay here, I don't care! I'm going back to help our parents. Can I trust you to _stay put?_"

Regulus slumped against the wall. Sirius cursed and pulled his wand back out. With a flourish he demolished the back door to the restaurant, and dragged Regulus inside by his hair. The alarm started to sound, but Sirius silenced it with a sharp jab of his wand.

"There," he tossed Regulus into a booth. "Sit. And stay. I'm going now. Those bastards who were waiting to ambush us at my house will probably have regrouped with the others by now. I need to move quickly."

Yet for all the urge Sirius felt to leave, something pulled him back. A small tickling was poking at his chest and now that his life was not in imminent danger, he found himself wondering…

"Regulus?" he barked suddenly. Regulus, who had started to lay down in the booth, shot back up at his brother's harsh tone.

"Yes?" he asked.

Sirius sauntered up very close to Regulus looked down at him. Regulus met his gaze a little hesitantly. "Would you like to explain to me exactly how you seemed to know they would be at my manor?"

Regulus shook his head. "I don't know what—"

"Uh-uh," Sirius grabbed him by the hair to stop his head shaking. "You knew. You fucking knew because you were telling me not to go there. _Begging_ me. And while we're at it, perhaps you would also like to elaborate on your behavior back home. What was with all the guilt, Regulus, when you were telling me to leave you behind at Grimmauld?"

Regulus licked his greyed lips and coughed again.

"You're the one who fucking sent them," Sirius said quietly. "You traded them the warding blueprints to the house, and the location of my manor for that stupid badge I caught you with earlier. The one you fucking _threw away_." The sudden realization that Regulus had sold his family out for something he hadn't even wanted enraged Sirius past his boiling point.

"It's not like that!" Regulus yelled suddenly. "I didn't know what they were going to do!"

Sirius bore down on his brother instantly. With no thought at all, he slammed Regulus face first into the table. There was a crunch and a thud and a river of blood swarmed down to the floor. "Oh really?" Sirius screamed. "You didn't know what you were doing?"

Regulus sprang back upright and clutched at his mouth and nose. He let out a low, keening scream. "She said they weren't going to hurt you!" he sputtered through blood and chunks of skin. The impact had sent his front teeth straight though his upper lip.

"Who?"

"Lily, the lady in charge of—"

"Bella and Rabastan are _dead_," Sirius screamed, suddenly no longer interested in things such as names. "And who knows who else by now, because you wanted to play friends with the rebels?"

Regulus shook his head, hands still clamped over his face like it was the only thing keeping his nose attached. Sirius took hold of his neck and Regulus was forced to lower his hands in an attempt to free himself from his brother's grip. His nose was streaming blood and positioned much too far to the left.

"Why?" Sirius raged, shaking Regulus like a particularly noisy baby. "What would possess you to do this?"

"I didn't know what else to do," he repeated. "They said they'd come for us either way, if I let them in then..."

Sirius wasn't really listening. Regulus's already ash grey face was turning even paler without any oxygen.

"You murdered your entire family for a goddam bird pendant that you didn't. Even. Want," he hissed again. "Or did they give you something else? Offer you something more?"

Regulus's eyes gave him all the answer he needed. There was more to this story. Sirius loosened his grip to let his brother breath and explain.

Regulus gasped and spat out blood and mucus all over Sirius's wrists. He hiccupped once. "Th—they promised I could keep you!"

Sirius panted hard, but otherwise didn't speak. He looked at Regulus intently and so his little brother continued pathetically, "They said it would be easy to take off during all the commotion and have nobody notice us gone."

"You expect me to believe a word you're saying you little traitor?"

"I'm not a traitor," Regulus murmured.

"Oh really? Did you not care at all for Bella or Rabastan, or our parents for that matter?"

"Not as much as I care about you!" Regulus insisted. "And they said they weren't going to kill anyone…"

Sirius shook his head. "Don't waste your last breaths," he hissed. "You were fucked up from the start. I can't believe Mother and Father thought it was a good idea to keep you. Don't you try and tell me you had noble intentions!"

Regulus took a deep, stuttering breath. He looked close to passing out. "I wanted you to go away with me."

"_What?_"

"The cards said—"

"Fuck your tarot cards, Regulus," Sirius shouted. "No tea leaves, no crystal ball, none of that nonsense! You can't explain this away with any of your fucking childish hobbies." He turned on his heel to leave, but Regulus reached out to him.

Sirius flung him back. "Get away from me," he insisted. "Regulus, I don't ever want to see you again. Understand that if you were anyone else you would be dead where you sit, but you're my brother and I promised Father I'd get you out of Grimmauld Place alive. If you ever come near me again, though, all bets are off. I will kill you."

Sirius looked at his brother with the utmost honesty in his eyes.

"My cards aren't ever wrong, Sirius," Regulus whispered, and there was a deranged fierceness alight in his eyes that Sirius desperately wished he was surprised to see. It were as though, to Regulus, the world did truly consist solely of himself and Sirius. "And they said to me—"

"I don't care," said Sirius, and he Apparated away straight to his office at the Ministry. He never wanted to see Regulus Black again. He was scared of what his brother had done, he was scared of what his brother might do, and he was _terrified_ of how quickly he might forgive him.

Sirius took a deep breath and steeled himself. All that was left to do now was pick up the pieces of his shattered family, and rehearse what he was going to say to his parents, if they were even still breathing.

* * *

Surrounded by his familiar knick-knacks, Sirius felt himself calm ever so slightly. Here was his work desk, his calendar, his clear-blue paperweight… His black work-owl sat poised in her cage next to his desk chair like she did every day, waiting for the next work memo of business letter to need sending.

Sirius pushed his office door open and leaned into the hallway.

There wasn't a soul to be found in this wing of the Ministry. Its normally bustling corridor was still and silent; there were half empty coffee mugs sitting on the office desk next door. _Everyone must have been called out to Grimmauld_ Sirius mused. Or at the very least they had be swept up in the commotion and sent out to commence damage control. How much time had actually passed since he'd tossed his brother out his bedroom window? The clock on his wall told him no more than fifteen minutes. Had all this truly happened in a quarter of an hour?

His owl keened dolefully, ruffling her feathers.

"Hush, Mida," Sirius said absent-mindedly.

Yet fifteen minutes was also a very long time, and the longer he stayed away, the harder Sirius was finding it to go back home. He sat down in his spinning office chair. There was no need for him to sound the alarm now, someone already had. Most likely one of the built-in security mechanisms back at the house, or else one of those maniacs had started another fire.

Probably best to leave the fighting and medical care to the professionals, anyway. Sirius had little practical experience in such matters. There was a reason he signed the Dark Lord's paperwork, because he simply wasn't much of a hands-on person. Medical business grossed him out and despite his alarming tendency to smash his brother's face and throw his wife across the bedroom, he wasn't a particularly violent person.

Narcissa…Sirius groaned softly. What a hell his life would be if she survived, if she found out what Regulus had done. She'd blame Sirius for everything, and surely see that Regulus was carted back off to the mental ward on Azkaban for good this time. Sirius found he didn't much like that idea. Regulus had always come back odd, and somehow even more withdrawn after every stay on that island.

He remembered Regulus's most recent stay, shortly after his fifteenth birthday, where he had been sectioned for two months after their father been unnerved by some sketches he'd found in his youngest son's bedroom. The rare, pleading look Regulus had sent to him, begging for some kind of intervention had been easy enough for Sirius to dismiss, but the haunted, worn-out expression he'd borne upon his return had been harder to shake.

Sirius had always meant to approach the subject of Regulus's treatments with his parents but…there had never seemed a good time. Was it at least in part his fault Regulus was insane?

Slowly, Sirius lifted his feet onto his desk. He wondered if the surviving Phoenix members at Grimmauld had been captured or killed, and if anyone had stopped by the remains of his manner yet.

His bird cooed again. He looked up at her sharply, whereupon he noticed the family photo he had hanging on the wall near the door. There he stood, smiling a stony smile and standing perfectly poised next to his father, mother, wife and brother. Everyone was positioned correctly: the younger child in front, bookended by the two women with the father and oldest son looking regally on from behind them. Narcissa smiled the most, Orion the least…it was a standard family photo.

And that's when an uncomfortable truth hit Sirius like a bludger. He wasn't angry with Regulus for inadvertently harming his family. He was angry with him for destroying Sirius's sense of normalcy, for throwing him headfirst into the unknown. He had screamed at Regulus for being uncaring, but it was _he_ who felt no grief over his family. _He_ who thought of their deaths not as sickening tragedies, but as inconveniences to him and his life. How much paperwork was he going to have to fill out? Who would take care of his finances for him? (For his parents had always controlled his life in that regard). How much was Narcissa going to complain, should she survive? Would the Dark Lord reprimand him for his lack of vigilance and bravery?

A powerful fear took hold of Sirius at that thought—the Dark Lord. This was going to upset his standing. The Order of the Phoenix had caused considerable damage this time, and Sirius was not liking the looks of being one of the sole survivors of this incident.

What was it Regulus had said mere moments ago? _They said it would be easy to take off during all the commotion and have nobody notice us gone._

He had left those altered corpses at the mansion…unless he chose to reveal otherwise, Sirius Black was dead to the wizarding world!

He could leave, go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted…or he could try and patch up his life in London. Sirius weighed his options in his head. As frightened as he was by the unknown, an adventure of this sorts had an enormous appeal to him, and, as he smugly told himself, if it didn't work out, couldn't he always come back later? Confess he'd been hiding for his and his Master's safety? Something along those lines…

Sirius swept himself back up and left his office. Rarely was he this impulsive—or perhaps 'never' would be a better word—but this felt right. It was time to have some actual agency in his life.

Sirius's next step was more complicated. He needed to get Regulus. Oh, he was still hopelessly enraged with his brother, but that was subject to change. And there was still the more pressing issue that if Regulus were to be noticed, then so too would everyone know Sirius was alive as well. There was some pride involved as well. Regulus Black had ruined all but one piece of Sirius's life, destroyed all his family save for one member: himself. And fuck all if Sirius wasn't going to reclaim his sole remaining piece of normalcy before fleeing this dismal country.

Yet he had no way to track down his brother. He had no idea where exactly it was that he had left the kid, and no way to communicate with him. The best he could hope for was to head Regulus off wherever he was likely to go next.

_If_ Regulus was going to be going anywhere at all. Sirius had left him in pretty bad shape and in all honestly he was probably lying unconscious in that Italian Restaurant right now. Sirius set off briskly down the third-floor hallway, contemplating how to regroup.

First things first, he needed to change his appearance. It hurt him to do so, because if Sirius Black was anything it was vain, but it was a necessary evil. He slipped down a stairwell and into one of the Ministry's lower labs. He quickly closed the curtains on the lone window—not that there was anyone around outside to see him, but who knew which dilapidated apartment complexes might still have living residents peeking out their windows?—and got to work.

He didn't dare use his own wand. Voldemort kept extensive records of his wizards' active levels of magic usage, and he needed to see that Sirius had stopped using his wand _tonight. _No, potions it was. He should be able to do this without arousing suspicions about missing ingredients, he had authority to alter the labs inventory records, after all.

In the end, he didn't look much different. There wasn't time for a complete biological overhaul, and he was probably less conspicuous like this anyway. The blonde hair he'd had to give himself aggravated him, though; he looked like a Malfoy.

He walked confidently out of the Ministry, running into perhaps three or four people total, none of whom seemed to recognize him.

"Excuse me!" yelled a DoM employee as she collided with him near the exit. "I'm sorry, been called out, you know!"

Similarly, the main secretary was in too much of a hectic, work buzz to pay him much mind. He strolled right past the man and he didn't even look up from the sea of papers continually spawning in and around his desk.

"Perfect time for an attack, really," Sirius pondered. The Dark Lord had downsized the Ministry greatly in recent years, understandably wanting only those he deemed trustworthy to hold any kind of power. Yet in times like these, it meant damn near the whole government could be called out when something important was going on. Had the order been thinking, they would have staged the commotion at Grimmauld, and then used the weakened security to sneak into the Ministry itself.

"I would have made a great rebel," he said with a sideways grin before pushing open wide the front doors and strolling confidently outside into the night.

Sirius spent the night in a muggle hotel, feeling slightly depressed. He was starting to really tear himself up over Regulus and he wasn't sure why.

_He can take care of himself,_ he thought as he stretched out over the dingy bed, clothing still firmly on because no way was his bare skin touching those sheets any more than was necessary. _At least until I can get ahold of him._

Promises, promises.

Sirius rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. For the past few hours, his Dark Mark had been aching; it clawed and worked its way around his forearm and wrist, begging him to take note, to send some kind of response. Sirius ignored it. Voldemort was double checking, wanting to think that maybe the dead body at the mansion wasn't his after all. His Sirius had never lied to him before…

Sirius would need to avoid performing any magic for a while, at least until he could get a wand with a new signature, one that wouldn't be tracked, which would be tricky in that it would have to be purchased outside the U.K. Regulus would need one, too. Sirius frowned. Regulus had modified his current wand many times over himself, and would surely put up a fuss when Sirius destroyed it, but that was something he'd have to worry about later. At the moment, he dug his nails into his palms, trying to offset the pain in his arm.

His former life, had it been a life at all, was over.

Sirius blew out the candle and let its smoke syphon into his lungs while he slept. Eyes closed he didn't notice the golden garter snake carved into the lamp-stand wriggle free a few inches and whip its head around to stare at him intently, watching over him carefully in the dark.


End file.
